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Pushing the trend of intermittent fasting for weight loss
- williadc 9y agoI just completed a 3 day water-only fast, eating breakfast yesterday morning. The reason I fast is not like what is being described here, but more as a way of reminding my body that hunger is not going to kill me and to be more mindful about what I eat. One comment on the article, on the third day of fasting, I did not feel great like Libin describes: "I woke up on the third day feeling better than I had in 20 years." I probably over-did it with exercise though, playing Ultimate that morning on a hot turf field, then cycling around town. I've done a 2-day fast prior, and that was much more tolerable. I will probably continue with those, about 4 times per year.
- spraak 9y agoDo you have a blog, or resources you you can link that helped you get there? I can't even make a 3 day day fast of caffeine... but I definitely see the benefits of fasting, so I'd like to try.
- srik 9y agoFor me it really was more about the mental hurdles. I've done multiple 14 day water only fast and recently a 7 day fast a week ago. For me it's about learning all the many things we know so far that got me through and kept me fresh and energetic. For example - hydration and electrolytes are key, especially sodium(salt), potassium(Lite salt), magnesium citrate and possibly calcium. Knowing how the body loses what electrolytes during which phases is a big deal. Also knowing the risks is important e.g. Only so much potassium should be consumed at a time. And There is a thing called re feeding syndrome and edema. Refereeing properly is important to avoid something like this. I've noticed upto 3 days is not that big a deal once you've done at least one. Also if you mess up your refeeding after a 3 day fast it seems easier. Remember that your gut biome will change. Longer fasts will experience different effects that you might or might not be prepared for hence the reading up. One thing that made long fasts easier is by slipping into a fast after being in ketosis. That way I've always avoided the dreaded Keto flu. Know your purpose though definitely. If it's weight loss, then I've learnt a better combination to be Keto + intermittent fasting 23:1 and when possible 4:3(4days feasting and 3 days fasting) Water fasting has additional benefits like autophagy etc. but really I would not recommend to anyone whose not ready to take on some serious research and doesn't have an experimental mindset. One other thing that will take you by surprise is how much bored you'll get!! Resources - https://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/ https://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/ https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NaNQcDjUR97yfF3bNYqAmGldKvS7s_q245qRH0PH4rc/mobilebasic https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NaNQcDjUR97yfF3bNYqAmGld... http://a.co/hvVllDl http://a.co/hvVllDl
- williadc 9y agoI don't have anything I can point to. I also struggled to give up caffeine on my first couple tries. On my last attempt, I noticed that I stopped getting migraines, which gave me all the motivation I needed to stick with it. I only have a sample size of myself, so my advice may not be worth much, and it's definitely a cliche. What seems to work for me is to set a modest goal and don't get discouraged when I don't meet that goal the first time. Once I hit that goal, I stretch to something more ambitious. Sometimes you'll find you have goals that you don't really care about as much as you think. It's okay to set them aside and pursue the things that matter to you. Okay that's it for unwanted-advice time. :) Good luck with your goals!
- justboxing 9y ago> Geoffrey Woo, CEO of biohacking and nootropics company HVMN (pronounced “human”), There used to be a joke going around in the aftermath of the .com bubble burst, when startups that 'ate' the vowels in their .com domain name started popping up left and right, and the joke was that they were too broke to afford the vowels. Most famous of these was Twttr .
- SilasX 9y agoThey always have to find a new name for everything. It's not fasting, it's biohacking. It's not a tip, it's a life hack. It's not custom, it's bespoke. Edit: Aritcle title is "The Silicon Valley execs who don't eat for days: 'It's not dieting, it's biohacking'"
- lisa_henderson 9y agoYour first 2 examples are good, but "bespoke" is older and often more specific than "custom".
- freehunter 9y agoI agree biohacking is a stupid name, but there's a difference between fasting and dieting. Dieting is specially related to food you eat, while fasting is food you didn't eat.
- dpark 9y agoThis isn't a meaningful difference and it's also not really true. A "water fast" is a fast involving consumption of only water. Similarly a "juice fast". So a fast isn't just about "food you didn't eat". Fasting is also absolutely a diet in the sense of a diet as a state of caloric restriction.
- freehunter 9y agoA juice fast isn't a fast, it's another stupid name like biohacking. The literal dictionary definition of "diet" is "the kind of food an animal eats" or maybe "the types of food someone is limited to for weight loss or medical reasons". A "juice fast" is a diet, not a fast. A water fast is just a normal fast, since water does not have any calories and is not a food. A diet is not a state of caloric reduction, it's a description of the foods you're able to eat. A fast is not a description of the foods you're able to eat, it's a description of the act of eating zero foods and zero calories. If you're dieting, you're eating food. If you're fasting, you're not. There is an infinite amount of difference between zero and anything-but-zero.
- cperciva 9y agoAt 5’11” and 165lbs, Woo doesn’t need to lose weight, although he did drop 12lbs over the week. 12 lbs of fat in one week is 7000 Calories/day. Either he had crazy ketonuria (and was literally pissing away calories) or he was significantly dehydrated by the end of the week. If you're planning on fasting, make sure you stay hydrated. Between the water content of food and the habit of drinking at meals, we get far more water from meals than most people realize; cutting that out without compensating is not healthy.
- rhinoceraptor 9y agoYou need to consume salt (and other minerals) to retain the water. Just drinking water might actually hurt since you’re further diluting the salt you have left.
- heymijo 9y agoThere's more than fat and water that could compromise Woo's 12 pound difference. - Glycogen (stored glucose in your muscles/liver) is depleted - Muscle breakdown may occur (gluconeogenesis-converting amino acids to glucose) Glycogen is also a multiplier as it draws water into muscles. Less glycogen means less water.
- cperciva 9y agoSure, at the start some of the weight loss will be glycogen, and later some of it will be protein. Those aren't as energy dense as fat, but they still have a significant caloric content. The point remains: If you're losing more than 1 lbs/day and you're not running an ultramarathon (or equivalent), you're almost certainly getting dehydrated.
- dpark 9y agoGlycogen storage causes significant water storage. If you deplete your glycogen, you'll lose a significant amount of water weight. This is why people lose so much when they first start dieting. 12 pounds in a week of a real fast seems reasonable for someone who weighs 170. Call it 4 pounds of fat and 8 pounds of glycogen and water.
- dawhizkid 9y agoAgree with Libin's philosophy of treating carbs as a special treat. I normally do not eat carbs since I'm on a keto diet, but had the best pizza in my life in Florence and an amazing bowl of carbonara in Rome.
- pmoriarty 9y agoAnyone interested in this should check out /r/fasting.[1] Apart from the friendly and helpful community, their wiki[2] and FAQ[3] are also well worth reading. [1] - https://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/ https://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/ [2] - https://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/wiki/fasting_in_a_nutshell https://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/wiki/fasting_in_a_nutshell [3] - http://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/comments/fihek/introduction_to_intermittent_fasting_if/ http://www.reddit.com/r/fasting/comments/fihek/introduction_...
- mmahemoff 9y agoI had to laugh at the top post there right now, linking to the same article as here. "Normally don't care about Silicon Valley wankery - but this article has made me at least pay attention to fasting. Do people here consider it accurate?"
- sridca 9y agoIf you are interested in fasting check out Dr. Jason Fung: https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/category/fasting/ https://intensivedietarymanagement.com/category/fasting/
- 0xbear 9y agoI've found much of his book unpersuasive. But I think he's onto something with this fasting thing, as well as with not eating snacks all the time.
- maloney 9y agoAre you talking about Obesity Code? I find it to be quite convincing, he uses many studies to debunk the calories in calories out paradigm and provides ample evidence that obesity is a hormonal problem.
- NikolaeVarius 9y agoBecause hormones explains the ability to gain mass out of thin air.
- maloney 9y agoSpoken like someone who knows literally nothing on the subject.
- NikolaeVarius 9y agoLost over 100 pounds in 1.5 years after a lifetime of obesity by simply eating less and skipping meals. I've read the literature on both the medical and bro-science side. I know plenty. If you can't lose weight, you're eating too much.
- sridca 9y agoThis is something I don't quite get about Jason Fung. He is critical of calorie restriction being less effective (he says you will feel more tired). But I'd like to see strong arguments and evidence for that.
- fillskills 9y agoThere are entire sects of people in India that do 5-10 days of fasting many times a year [1]. This has been going on for thousands of years. Personally I know 3 people who fast like that. And they all look 10 years younger than they are, have lot of energy and focus. This may be anecdotal. For example they also only eat vegetarian and don't drink any caffeine. But they claim that fasting helps them a lot. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasting_in_Jainism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasting_in_Jainism
- NikolaeVarius 9y agoIt's so damn weird that people are fetishising fasting. Why is there a need in the tech-bro community to fetishize perfectly normal things?
- imesh 9y agoIf your a regular gym goer you will notice that subjects and fads that pop up in gym conversation will reach hacker news about a year later.
- wppick 9y agoI've occasionally tried 17 hour fasting followed my endurance exercise such as 8 mile run + 25 mile bike. I feel more energized and "lighter" without food in my system. I also don't feel like I have a "crash" when my body uses up all the carbs in my body for energy. I know many people who feel terrible exercising on a fast, as if they are going to faint, so it might be something you should slowly work up to. I've also heard of taking BCAAs during fasting to preserve or even add muscle mass, but there seems to be conflicting opinions on this.
- NikolaeVarius 9y agoI definitely can't lift while in a fasted state, I simply can't produce a burst of energy. I find running to be easier as it just requires some steady state energy output and Glycogen stores tend to be good enough for steady state. I still like I'm about to faint both times though.
- freehunter 9y agoEverything I've ever read on weightlifting says that aerobic exercise during a fast will destroy muscle gains. Aerobic exercise doesn't require large muscles, so if you don't have fuel to power your body it will break down big muscles to power your other systems. My understanding is that it's better to just cut back the weight during the fast, but continue to lift to continue telling your body that you need to keep those muscles and not burn them.
- NikolaeVarius 9y agoTruthfully it's less that I try specifically to work out faster but more that I work out in the morning and simply cannot fathom eating anything that early
- bitL 9y agoTry full-body HIIT, there was some study showing lower muscle loss during fasting comparing to aerobic exercises.
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- KaiserPro 9y agoSigh Look Tech CEOs are not real people. Just because they have cultivated crippling OCD into something resembling a functional lifestyle, doesn't mean you should follow. Some might not have OCD, some might be on the psychopathic spectrum, others might just be plain obnoxious bellends. Of course there are CEOs who are fasting themselves. There are also poor people doing it too, but not through choice or some virtue signal to how "enlightened" they are. Now, as someone who inadvertently starved themselves, its not something I'd recommend. You are irritable, ill, in pain, and sluggish. Anybody who says otherwise is either a lier or not doing it properly.
- spraak 9y agoI agree ththat just because a startup CEO is doing something doesn't mean you should, but that aside, fasting can can be very beneficial. You inadvertently starved yourself, does this mean you practised fasting or you had had an eating disorder? In any case sorry if you were hurt by it, but others can feel really good from it.
- KaiserPro 9y agoOnce for science, once because both me and the doctors didn't realise what was happening. Either way, I'm sure its great if you have bodyfat, but its really crap if you dont.
- spraak 9y agoNot just for fat, but to give your digestion and associated organs a rest
- wiz21c 9y agoHow do you know they need to rest ? Did you interview them ? :-)
- KaiserPro 9y agoif you have bodyfat, you have energy reserves that are not particularly destructive to use. if you run out of bodyfat you start you break down muscle. that is harder to recover from. There is no concept of giving your digestion a "rest" you either use it or it atrophies. There is a great deal of evidence about what happens when you starve yourself.
- pzh 9y agoI genuinely wonder what the point of fasting is, given that you can achieve the same results by just skipping carbs or following a keto diet. The ketosis these people get into happens because the body has no glycogen to burn, so whether you fast or you just skip the carbs should have the same effect.
- freehunter 9y agoI genuinely wonder what the point of skipping carbs or keto diet is, given that you can achieve the same results by just fasting every other day. The ketosis these people get into happens because the body has no glycogen to burn, so whether you fast or you just skip the carbs should have the same effect, but at least with alternate-day fasting you still get to eat like a normal human being.
- pzh 9y agoSeriously? So many downvotes for asking a genuine question and hoping to have a discussion? I didn't think people could have such strong feelings about one type of diet vs another. I've tried both fasting and keto and I've got more or less the same results. I guess some people find fasting more convenient to doing keto, which is fine. I found that with fasting I have more difficulty doing resistance training, and it inevitably leads to a more severe loss of muscle mass, whereas with keto I find that I can more or less preserve the muscle mass and just lose body fat.
- imesh 9y agoYeah tech people try all the same diet and exercise things that everyone else does.
- VirtualAirwaves 9y agoI fast at least 6 days/year for religious reasons. 3 are 12 hour fasts, and 3 are 25 hour fasts. It really does feel good, and I don't think it's harmful. I'm very consciousness about my weight in general, and this is accomplished by strict calorie counting. You'll notice that the vast majority Silicon Valley CEOs are not overweight, and I believe it is an unspoken "filter" they use to judge a person (whether this is right/just/moral is another story). There seems to be a belief that if a person isn't disciplined enough to be in charge of his hunger, then he's not disciplined. > At 5’11” and 165lbs, Woo doesn’t need to lose weight, although he did drop 12lbs over the week. Well, I'm an inch shorter and 15# less. I don't think 5'11 and 165 is particularly skinny!
- davidwihl 9y agoYou are likely an observant Jew. I've starting drinking some water on 25 hr fasts as I didn't think it was healthy anymore to be so thirsty. It is a good reminder to appreciate what you have.
- distances 9y agoThen again, a 12 hour fast equals one long session of in-zone coding or a bit too addictive new game..
- khazhou 9y agoI'm a little bit dumber today for reading this headline. People in tech don't have any authority on nutritional practices. CEOs don't have any increased insight into healthy living. And the article itself just focuses on a tiny number of individuals. I can't even fathom how the writer tracked them down to weave a narrative here.
- nether 9y agoI'm eating some delicious Korean BBQ right now. I highly recommend it.
- peterarmstrong 9y agoOne easy way to get started on this which isn't an extended fast is to do something like the Warrior Diet. What I do is skip breakfast and lunch virtually every day, except for fresh vegetable juice I make myself, and all the coffee and water I want. Occasionally I have one or two dates or a banana, if I really need something. Then I eat a big dinner, ideally balanced with vegetables, meat and carbs at the end--but usually it's not the ideal. Eating dinner is really enjoyable, and there's no guilt. I started this just over a month ago and have lost ~15 pounds so far (from 240 to 225, I'm 6'3"). I've never felt better. The juice I make is: 5 lbs carrots, 4 red beets, 1 kale, fresh ginger root, fresh turmeric root. All organic. It lasts 3 days, which is good since cleaning a juicer is annoying. I bought the "Tribest GSE-5000Green Star Elite Jumbo Twin Gear Juice Extractor" from Amazon. Ironically, I started this during a 1-week vacation at an all-inclusive resort. I'd never been to one before, and by the second day I resented being told when to eat enough that it seemed the perfect time to try something like this...
- synicalx 9y agoDoes any of this have an actual basis in science or is it just some CEO's fishing for media attention by claiming they didn't eat for a week? More importantly, are there any long term studies on the affects of this?